Where We've Been
by stripedheart
Summary: They were just that- just words.
1. At the bottom of everything

**1.**_ At the bottom of everything._

"What do I remember about our first kiss?" The dark-haired girl, eyes misplaced in a vivid memory, said the words as if they were meaningless. Not as if they didn't have a meaning behind them-she was acutely and undeniably aware of the emotions clouded behind the statement-but as if they were just that-just words. Her eyes were far away, absentmidedly resting out the window, and avoiding the gaze of the man sitting across from her. Avoiding it the way she had for years now. She felt, all too soon, that she had to concede to the fact that he did, after all, know her too well to fall for her instinctive ploy. To fall for her traveling eyes and the emotions concealed behind them. Turning her confident stare to him, she met his gaze with steady eyes and thoughts she could feel streaming inside them.

Their first kiss. It was distinctively odd for her to remember it, because it was all her's. Devestatingly, lovingly, wholly, tenderly, painfully, all her's. Other memories she could recall-birthdays, Christmas, concerts, dances-belonged to other people as well as Ashley. They, of course, were never the main focus of her mainly focused mind, and so they faded. But they were always there and, somewhere inside, Ashely recognized that they had witnessed the events she held so close to her heart. So close they were burning a hole straight through.

But this one...this one was all her's. Because only two people had been privvy to the sweet, nervous taste of a first kiss. No one watching, like they almost always were when it came to Spencer and Ashley, the girls always placed under the limelight. No, this was just them, just them starting to build what would eventually carry Ashley into this room, into this now. What Ashley and Spencer had created under the aforementioned constant limelight and what Ashley had found, in a suddenly horrible way, was all she had left.

"It wasn't a very good kiss." Ashley let the words spill into the silence, and recrossed her legs. Realizing, a split second too late, that this natural body language would easily tell the good doctor she was lying. She shifted and kept eye contact when she was hiding something from anyone, and he knew this. He knew many other things as well, things Ashley had admitted in this dark room ages ago, accompanied by dripping tears and a clenched stomach. Forced into reality by sheer force of will and not much else. Things only one other person had ever recieved, with the same sobs and the same terror. Only then, there had been soft kisses and warm hugs and arms that promised to never leave without her having to say the words.

Now, Ashley knew without doubts, the owner of those arms had been lying.

"Well, it wasn't the best." Another lie, though this time only Ashley was sure of it. The doctor tilted his head, searched curiously- because all he ever was was curious -but couldn't decipher the feelings sheilded behind Ashley's dark eyes. And there was no way Ashley was letting him in, not anywhere near the way she had laid her dark before him years ago. There were no tears and no fear left to be shed, nothing for her to offer in order to gain what she desperately needed. What she had earned years ago and what had been slid out from under her without even a breath of a warning. She couldn't break and let him in anymore.

"We had been friends for a few weeks." Her eyes were out the window again and her voice mused into the past. She said the words, but had no intent of allowing him any further. As harsh as that memory felt and, in plain contrast, as soft as the memory itself was, she had come to a firm desicion in the seconds after he asked. She had remembered the achingly tangible moments, along with the ever present pain in her chest, and she had kept them to herself. Pushed back wayward tears, ones she let course in the silence of her empty house, but ones she had delegated to there and there only.

"And we kissed." The pain sliced again, with infallible accuracy, straight into her heart- right where she felt it the freshest. Deep into what she knew had been torn so many times in the past weeks, yet still cut anew. Still made her eyes strive to blink and her chest clench with the same ferocity of those admissions years ago. Another dark to blemish her already stained white soul.

"Well Ashley, I think that's all the time we have today." His voice wasn't disappointed, or relieved, nor did it contain any emotion whatsoever. It was pleasant and devoid of anything Ashley could use against him to guilt him into fixing her problems for her. To force him to rip her apart the way Spencer had and then put her back together in the hours afterward. Still, she knew even if she did find that weak spot, that chink in his armour- because everyone had one- he wouldn't be able to glue her the way Spencer had. He wouldn't have the strength or the care and he sure as hell wouldn't have the love Ashley needed right now. Because no one had that love. No one ever would again.

Although, if Ashley strove as deep into her heart as her mind would allow, she relaized she did have that love, she was just refusing awareness of it.

But then again, when it came down to it and everything was wavering on the line, all that mattered was awareness.

"Thank you." Ashley stood and leaned across the doctor's chesnut desk as she did every week, offering her hand as some sort of peace offering after refusing any and all of his questions for an hour. He shook it quickly as he did every week and turned down to his notes, still scribbling furiously the way he did every session. Ashley had become positive of the fact that he was writing a book about her, or at least about her various issues, because he never put down his little white pen for anything. He would glance up, eyes wide and lost, seeing her but not seeing her, listening but really just writing. She would spin tales of crazy and make up lonely little shorts, but the truth was, she had been estatically happy. She had been loved and she had loved with the same desperate need, the same reckless abandon.

Now though, she needed him to stop scribbling. She needed someone to stop putting pen to paper, and mouth to ear, stop eyeing her with sympathetic gaze and just _fix_ her. She needed _that_ with desperate need, with reckless abandon. She felt dirty and dark and cut, things she was aware she wasn't, but the knowledge didn't halt the stumbling tears that grazed her face every night, or the continuous hurt that seemed to be everywhere all at once. Making her feel as if she would never have a day of peace, never breathe again without knowing that everything she loved wasn't there to share it with her. Without a tight throat and an utter helplessness.

And what cut her the most was the fact that Spencer would hate her for this. Spencer would cry and pound and force her way into Ashley's dark like she needed to be there and then yell at her for letting that dark fester. For stowing it away where no one- not even Spencer -could touch it. Spencer would hate her for it.

But Ashley didn't know what else to do.

She turned away from the desk, from the scribbling fingers and the white pen, and headed toward the heavy, imposing door. She took a deep breath and tried to remember when the harsh daylight felt warm and when intimate touches were welcomed. Tried to remember normal, whatever that was.

She failed miserably.

She fell back into what she now was, as thin and weak as that person was. Pushing open the door into a room full of shattered souls, she found herself close to repulsed by them.

Because she saw something identical in her.

But she didn't know what else to do.


	2. Burn your life down

_**For anybody who was wondering, I did have this up on here a while back. I got to about the second chapter and then just gave up. But I'm bringing it bakk now. I think the old title was "Every Twelve Hours".**_

_**2.** Burn your life down._

Spencer had dreamt of being unnoticable when she was young.

Of slipping in and out of crowds without the constant eyes and the painful noise that followed her everywhere- whether it was calls for her to pose or quiet whispers about her family. She learned to hate it when they talked and gossiped and whispered. And my, did they talk, tongues wagging at every movement of the essentially imperfect Carlins. Spencer wished they weren't perfectly imperfect, wished that they would mess up so drastically and so horribly that the media would lose interest, would put down their cameras with disgust, and then they could fade away. She wished that they didn't make just the right mistakes or contain such inconcievably interesting flaws, so that maybe she could walk to her car without being blinded by popping flashbulbs.

She hadn't given up on that dream for a long time, which surprised her because she was rather fickle in everything else. The youngest of the filthy rich Carlins, she wasn't exactly the perfect she was made out to be.

Basically, she was a brat.

But Paula was good at covering it, and giving her whatever she needed whenever she needed it. And so Spencer didn't change or adapt or concede much of anything to anyone; unless her brother begged or her father sent her that look. And Paula was forced to give in more and more, to cover up for her youngest almost constantly, because after awhile all the begging and all the looks just stopped working. And Spencer stopped caring. Until one day it all broke open. One day, Spencer hit a barrier she hadn't known was there.

But that's another story, because this one starts here. Years later and attitudes futher, following tears and bruises and broken, here is where she stood. In this room, this gorgeous room that she absolutely hated. She hated it the day she stepped into it, and it didn't help that she didn't leave again. It was the prettiest room she'd ever been in and she despised it.

Spencer laid on the bed, arms out and legs dangling off the edge, the same way she'd laid there every day. The soft, golden lamps were the perfect shade, but that didn't stop the light from offending her, from making her want to turn them off. To let her slide into darkness and an escape and maybe freedom. Freedom in the form of long, complex dreams that were memories in disguise and pain smothered with happiness.

Dreams that brought her back and dreams that made her wish to go forward.

She turned off the lamps.

_Spencer pulled her silk dressing gown tighter around her waist and lifted the neatly pressed paper closer to her face. She crinkled her perfect eyebrows a little, blue eyes clouding with concentrated thought._

_"Matthew's acting crazy again." She mused softly, fingers twirling a thin spoon through her coffe, though there wasn't any cream or sugar in it yet. She slid one tan, waxed leg over the other and laid the spoon on the saucer, flipping the page._

_"What's that miss?" Anna asked, pouring a stream of milk into Spencer's coffee, her maid's uniform pressed just as neatly as Spencer's paper. Anna was a proficient person. Spencer glanced up distractedly, eyes wide and tired. _

_"Nothing." Spencer muttered, going back to her paper. Her fingers reached for the spoon again. Resuming her stirring, she carefully studied the entertainment section she had before her. She had made front page, as usual, though this time in connection with Davies. It was becoming more and more usual, this connection the press was etching between her and the rock star's daughter, but Spencer didn't think anything of it. It would fade, because it always did. _

_"Are you going to dinner today?" Anna asked in her elegant English, every word rolling easily past her full lips. She was Spanish and utterly gorgeous, flawless skin and dark brown eyes, a woman someone would love to paint. Spencer barely glanced up._

_"Yeah. Will you pick me out some clothes, please?" Anna nodded, though Spencer didn't bother to look up and see it, and then glided away. Spencer kept pouring over the paper, eyes darting quickly over every headline, pausing once in a while to read an article. This was her attempt at keeping up with the ever changing celebrity world and the people in it, from the fifteen seconds to the lifers._

_"Gold or sliver Ms. Carlin?" Anna called from the closet twenty feet away._

_"Whatever." Spencer said back, taking a single sip of her coffee. Finally, she dropped the paper to the table and stood up. Shedding her gown, she let it pool around her feet, leaving her completely exposed. She started toward the bathroom. "I'm gonna take a shower Anna." She yelled to the woman, running a hand through her golden locks- real or not, no one would ever know. She reached the door to her huge marble bathroom and paused, looking back._

_"Are you coming?" _

Spencer woke to the sound of frantic pounding on her door, the noise startling her. She pushed up off the bed quickly and stood dazed for a moment, images disorted and odd. Another pounding knock echoed through the room and through her head and she frowned hard. She started toward the deadbolted door, each step bringing her nearer to the terrifying noise. On her toes, she peered through the hole to see her mother there, looking bored and stoned as usual. Spencer frowned, annoyed, and opened the door to let the intimidating woman inside.

"Spencer Keller, what took you so long?" Paula asked, her eyes roving over the room in search of whatever item had held Spencer up. Spencer shot the woman- Paula Keller, world-renowned gold digger turned actress - a disbeliving look, laden with life-long experience of Paula's vices- the least of which being her lack of patience.

"I was sleeping Mom." Spencer spat. Paula snorted.

"And I'm ugly. Just wash your hands before we speak." Spencer didn't even react to her mother's crude, insulting words. It was just the way the woman was, and the way she had been for years before Spencer had even appeared.

"What do you want?" Spencer asked, folding her arms protectively over her chest and taking a step away from her mother.

"Just checking on you." Paula answered, still scanning the room- for what, Spencer didn't know. Everything was as it had been for the past two months, nothing moved or added.

"Well, I'm just peachy. Now leave." Spencer said, her glare becoming more hostile with each reminder of the outside world that her mother was so partial too. The thing was, Spencer loved that world too, for one specific reason.

"Fine. What a way to treat your mother. Carlin will be here to see you next week." Paula said, finally meeting her daughter's eyes. She gave her the usual up and down, you're too skinny, too fat look and then turned away. "Don't kill yourself or anything." She tossed over her shoulder. Spencer shot daggers into her back.

When the woman had disappeared down the hall, Spencer shut the door and locked it, keeping out all the world again. Locking herself back into the tiny one she hated and had created. The one she needed and yet was living in for someone else.

Her semi-voluntary prison.


	3. Can I stay?

_3 Can I Stay._

_The lights flashed continuously, and in such a constant and unrelenting way that the usually pitch black, dirty street was lit up like Rodeo Drive. Tens of cars, expensive or clunkers, lined the thin street and stretched down the length of it, until they spilled out into the next road over. Spencer titled her head down and pushed her chin into her chest in an attempt to cut out some of the blinding light, an attempt that wasn't working well- or at all. There must have been hundreds of photographers, all of them equipped with the newest and best cameras, all of them clicking away without care or skill. All desperate for one photo of Spencer Carlin._

_Spencer Carlin in handcuffs. _

_The police officer put a gentle hand on her shoulder and pushed her down into the car, trying to sheild her from the paparazzi the best he could._

_"Just a couple miles, ma'am." He spoke into her ear, comforting in such a twirl of frenzied action. He shut the door and cut some of the sound. Spencer leant down into the seat- it smelled like sick and sweat and jail and she wanted to cry but she refused to give anyone the satisfaction. So, instead, she sat up and forced herself to employ some of that grace and poise her mother had pounded into her from day one._

_She shot her gaze out the window in a calm, settled look meant for the paparazzi and them only, and then glanced away. She desperately tried to ignore them and focuse on the whine of the siren and the rumble of the engine that could barely be heard over the screams of her name. _

_It was a cutting facade._

_Maybe the best one she had ever put on, but one nonetheless. Inside, all she wanted to do was cry, because she was terrified and dazed and she couldn't remember what had happened in the last hour. She was bleeding and kind of dirty and her ears were ringing. She was so thankful for the speeding car she was in and its flashing lights and loud siren. _

_She was sort of drunk. _

_She remembered dinner, and drinking with her older brothers while her little siblings danced around with water guns. She remembered going to party with Glen, and she remembered a concert, and then the beginning of an afterparty. But all of that was kind of blurred and the last part was mostly gone. She rememebered hands and bodies and the smell of human closeness, but that was something she had grown so used to that she didn't even bother to distinguish it from all the other clumps of memory._

_She remembered other hands to._

_Ones that weren't brushing her with casual intimacy or accidental movement, but that grazed her with fierce purpose and twined their way through her already tangled hair. Ones that knew the skin they were handling so roughly, because if they hadn't they wouldn't have dared touch her like that. They wouldn't have had a reason to. She had tiny bruises and aches and scratches but the events, the probably passionate actions, were wiped away._

_They screeched to a halt in front of the police station and all of that noise, all the overly bright lights and rough hands and callous voices, all came running back into her ears, washing over her body. The door was flung open, another policeman, his eyes barely glancing her way, motioned for her to get out. To step into the fray of squirming bodies all brandishing something at her, all waving things obnoxiously in her face, lights popping._

_But she stepped out anyway, because she knew she had to and she wasn't a patient person- even when it came to pain. Her face was like stone, like a flawless carving by someone very fucked up, because she was so gorgeous and so flat. She was every bit of the girl next door and that was it- no underlying emotions, no secrets to hold. She was America's sweetheart, or maybe just the mask of it._

_Nobody cared._

_Three bodyguards, five policemen, and two lawyers weren't enough to keep the crowd back. A hand hit her cheek, a camera glanced off her shoulder, and then it was over and she was inside. But she wasn't any safer- wasn't any more relaxed. The yellow lights and white tiles made her face even colder, her eyes even darker and maybe even glassier. The reflections of camera flashes and muted voices made her chest clench. Her lawyer- Jake or something, she had probably fucked him once - placed a hand on her shoulder and guided her toward a steel room. Or, it looked steel, and cold and harsh. Everything she felt right now. _

_They fingerprinted her, made her sign stuff she couldn't even read her eyes were swimming so, and took her picture. Made her stand there holding a black, flimsy feeling square with numbers on it- her numbers- like she was a criminal._

_She _wasn't.

_She saw her picture in the monitor when she walked past. She looked angry but cold, defiant but calm, and most of all, she looked hot. Even with a red spot growing on her cheek and her hair pulled up behind her head, dirt smearing her neck, she looked hot. Maybe not beautiful, or elegantly gorgeous, but she was fucking hot. _

_They brought her to another room, almost an hour later, and this one smelled like sweat and metal. She wasn't so drunk anymore, wasn't removed from everything in a self-induced haze of alcohol and cocaine. So she saw the anger in her mother's eyes and the disappointment in her father's; the sympathy in Glen's and the confusion in Clay's. The reactions she had been expecting- she had imagined them over in her head while she was sweating under the hot lights, having her picture taken while she was half-drunk. But she hadn't been expecting the slap. The one that glanced off her face, her mother's soft hand turning unexplainably hard and unforgiving._

_Her hand reflecting her personality for once._

_They left after that. Left Spencer in another steel room with a man she might have fucked once. She sat down at the table and the police came in soon after, shooting questions before they were even in the room. _

_"Where were you at 2:15 this morning?" _

_"Did you ever have sexual relations with Matthew Ingram?"_

_"Was it consensual?" _

_"How many drugs are you on, sugar?" _

_"How old were you when you started using?"_

_"Do you have a violent nature?"_

_"Does she have a violent nature?"_

"Did you kill Matthew Ingram?"

_Spencer lied a lot. She had been lying all her life and she didn't see why she should stop now. Money could buy anything, even this Hollywood police department, and she had money. She had plenty of money. She could afford to lie a lot._

_Hours passed. Long, confusing hours, and they asked questions that didn't even matter, ones that she sometimes couldn't even reply to, because the answers had no value whatsoever. They hadn't ever meant anything, so why were these people asking them? Standing with one foot on the chair, showing off shiny metal guns as if that would make her nervous. As if she hadn't ever seen one before, hadn't ever been threatened by one._

_She had._

_Eventually, the questions slowed. Hours passed and the policewoman rubbed at her eyes, and her partner flipped numbly through his notes. Spencer's posture hadn't slipped once- nor had her facial expression. It stayed cold and unemotional and her voice factual and icy. She was pissed and confused and better at displaying cold emotions. Better at putting on facades, because after all she got paid millions to do it didn't she? _

_There was the quick opening of the door, hurried words and her lawyer- his name was Mark -stood up to join the talk. His hands moved with his words, painting pictures of distress and frantic. She read body language too well, read subtle signs and quick movements without ever really realizing it. These said he was tired. That he was close to losing it. They said he wanted to be home and he was getting irritated with her. He met her gaze for a millisecond and his eyes guiltily echoed his hands._

_But more men in suits came in, their faces blurring together. Spencer was fucking tired. She wanted a soft bed and a hot bath. Fuck she wanted her home. She stood up, smoothed out her clothes. Tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. Was aware of every eye turning toward her, every word halted. She pretended to study them, really just gathered her wits, and spoke. A smile hinted though she couldn't feel it whatsoever. _

_"I think we're done here." And the determined husk in her voice cut into the mumurs of the station. No one spoke. She stepped around the cold table, steady and confident. Passed by each detective and cop without an ounce of hestitation. Her lawyer followed her out._

_"We'll be calling you Ms. Carlin!" She didn't respond._

_She went straight through the waiting room. Barely even heard the racous calls and vulgar words. Mark-Jake sputtering into a phone behind her, spitting orders and directions. She stepped outside and hurried through the throng. Didn't notice the limo ride or the trip to her room- couldn't remember it if she wanted to._

_She fell asleep the second she touched the bed, after stripping every piece of clothing off. Throwing it into the living room. Her eyes shut tight and dreams of loud music and frantic hands, all over her and dancing before her. Dreamt of pale faces and glaring lights. Of drunken words and steel tables._

_Dreamt of the night that changed it all._

Sometimes, she still dreams like that.


	4. Days and days

**4. **_Days and days._

Ashley's legs were imprinted with the pattern of the Oriental carpet she had been sitting on for the past few hours. Twisted circles and curving lines had pressed their way onto her skin. She only noticed because they stung when she got up, and because her knees echoed the sentiment. When had she gotten old?

She took another sip from the whiskey bottle in her hand and then balanced it on her Bosendorfer piano. The brandy liquid was dripping onto the finish but she barely noticed. Instead, she found her way, reaching, a little unsteady, onto the wooden bench behind it and settled into her seat. Her fingers hovered over the keys for a moment, but she dropped them suddenly into her lap. Reaching up, she grasped the neck of the brown bottle and downed another mouthful of alcohol. Replacing the bottle again with a heavy clunk, she turned her eyes to the piano.

Her fingers hit the keys and her eyes watched the notes on crinkled white paper, but nothing sounded like music. Nothing calmed her or made her forget- she couldn't _feel_ any of it. The noise rang in her ears, but not in her chest; the notes collided without grace or composure. She used to talk through music, but it spun away from her now, draining through her hands like shards of sand. Her fingers bounced over pristine black and white keys. She gave up after a couple minutes, trying to salvage the memory of a piano and the way she used to control it.

She sighed, eyes blurred and heavy in the dim room, and her hand stretched out for another sip, another down of whiskey. Her mind stretched for another memory to dull the night.

_Ashley pushed her way through the crowd of fans in front of the spinning glass doors, her sunglasses shielding her face, her purse swinging dangerously from her arm. Three men in black surrounded her. He heel caught in a crack for a millisecond, but she regained her balance and kept going anyway. The hotel lobby loomed in front of her, only one push through gold-rimmed doors and she would be-- free. The sounds of screaming and the waving hands faded to a dim roar as she paused just inside the calm lobby, the door swinging slowly behind her. In a smooth motion, she slid the glasses on top of her head and turned back to the crowd, now safely out of their reach. She grinned, nose crinkling just the slightest, and offered a wave. Beside her, her bodyguards moved in closer._

_The guys and girls on the other side of the barrier jumped in the air, arms waving, eyes focused, looking for that one second of eye contact that would make their stomach swim. Searching for Ashley Davies, and her infectious grin, her precious attention. Ashley slid her gaze slowly across all of them, still smiling. Then, she turned back and started toward the desk. Aiden appeared at her side out of nowhere, hands casually in his pockets. He looked relaxed and in control, like he always did. Ashley usually made a great comparison to his calm, in her wild flurry of movement and action and talk. _

_Right now though, she was just pissed._

_"I don't see the point of this meeting, Aiden. I've never met the girl in my life, and I sure as hell am not fighting with her." Ashley spat, shouldering her bag. She usually wasn't this bitchy, but her new single was flopping, her mom was in a hospital in Cabo where she needed to be right now, and this..._

_"That's not the issue, Ash." Aiden, never one to put up with her shit, drawled back. "Everyone thinks you hate each other. And this is going to fix that."_

_"Fix what? A fake fight?" Ashley was grumbling, but she understood why they had to do it. Growing up with her father as well as Raife Davies- who were one and the same, yet could not be more different -had taught her, the hard way, the difference between a real personality and a fake one. Didn't mean it didn't suck. Aiden ignored her pointless jabs and leaned against the cream marble counter of the check-in desk._

_"Conference room?" He asked the woman behind the counter, as Ashley glanced around the lobby. She'd been in this one before and she vaguely remembered the sprawling stairs and high balcony. The concierge pointed and Aiden took Ashley's elbow, gently leading her in the right direction. He spoke again. "Look, she needs this for her career right now, and I'm not even going to bring up your mom's bad publicity or that "You&Me" fiasco."_

_"Its a good song." Ashley defended it automatically. It was good, just too Bob Dylan for anyone below twenty to understand. Aiden smirked, because he knew it was good- he'd been playing it on repeat on his iPod since he'd gotten it._

_Then again, he was over twenty. _

_"Besides, after this, we're getting on the first plane out to see your mom." He said, opening a heavy wooden door for her. Ashley grinned, her nose really crinkling and her eyes flashing._

_"For real?"_

_"Yeah." She passed him and went into the room, still smiling. It was empty, save a tray of sandwiches and water. Crinkling her eyebrows, her smile faded. She placed her fingers on the dark leather of a conference chair._

_"Where's Carlin?" Her tone hinted her annoyance. She spun the cair a little violently and sat down in it, sticking her feet up on polished wood. She crossed one leg over the other. _

_"She should be here any minute now." Aiden placated her and took his seat a little more elgantly, placing his elbows on the wood and trying to ignore the back of her chair beside his head. She rocked back a couple times and gazed out at the bright afternoon. Her eyes flicked over the Hollywood skyline where it rose and fell, spreading as far as it could, and then suddenly dropping off where the water began. She couldn't see the waves, but she could hear them- feel them. Fuck this, she wanted to go to the beach. _

_Aiden reached over and wiped away a smear of dirt on her foot. Her skinny jeans barely reached her ankles, but offset her heels in that wannabe rocker way she pulled off carelessly. She stared at her nails and tried to decide if the streak on the big toe was a scratch or just the glint of the table._

_The door clicked open behind her and she slid her feet off the table without even thinking about it. Spinning her chair to the right, her arms braced on the side, she watched an entourage walk in. Ashley'd had the decency to leave her bodyguards outside, but apparently Spencer felt the opposite. Four bodyguards, two personal assistants, what looked to be a lawyer, and a well-known P.R. flanked the blonde girl's side._

_Ashley had seen her a million times before. She'd grown up with pictures of the slender girl pasted next to pictures of her in magazines across the world. The celebrity baby boom had spawned both of them, and Ashley supposed they'd met once or twice as tots. But Raife was a rocker and Christine was a model; and Paula was a socialite and Arthur was a director- they ran in the same big circles, but their little circles were significantly seperated. So they'd been seperated. And maybe that was a good thing, because apparently Spencer was a drunk bitch, and Ashley was known as the down-to-earth rocker. They clashed like every good sterotype should. _

_"Hi." The P.R. gave Ashley a friendly smile as Spencer sat down across from the dark-haired girl. Ashley decided she looked __**softer **__in person._

_"Hey." Ashley smiled back and pretended to ignore the girl who was currently ignoring her. A not-so-subtle nudge from the P.R.- Ally? -forced Spencer to lift her eyes. She was 22, still young enough to look like a brat, but she had that hint of intelligence in her gaze that make Ashley apprehensive. Ashley wasn't naive and from what she knew about Spencer, she should have been on her guard._

_She wasn't._

_"Hi, I'm Spencer." The girl smiled, offering her hand, because they'd technically never met before. And yet they were arch-rivals. Media..._

_"Ashley." The dark-haired girl said, and took the offered hand. They shook lightly and then sat back in their respective seats._

_"So..." Aiden started, pulling out his laptop. "Should we get started?"_

_Ashley glanced over at Spencer and they locked eyes for a split second. It made her heart skip a beat and then flutter nervously down to the pit of her stomach. She glanced away first, as smooth as she could muster. _

_It was going to get interesting._


End file.
